Intimidation
by Pantz
Summary: James asked her once how she could make her eyes glitter at any time. Lily smiled. “It’s easy all I have to think of is London.” Only that night she was thinking of James.
1. Chapter 1

_Disclaimer: Everything from HP books belongs to JK Rowling_

**Intimidation**

He has loved her for so many years.

It was painful and it was beautiful and it was love. It made him cry. It made him rage and storm and smile and laugh. It made him jealous and controlling, happy yet overwhelmingly depressed. And he wonderd, how can so much pain be inside an emotion that can breed so much happiness?

It could have been love at first sight. It could have sparked between them in that instant seven years ago when he stared into her emerald eyes and became instantly mesmerized. It could have happened when she smiled and said hello, needing a friend, any friend in this lonely magical world she was just beginning to know. But he ruined it.

A cocky grin, a nervous hand running through his hair, and arrogant words that quickly turned her smile into a scowl.

**He ruined it, but he was just a boy.**

Just a boy seeing the love of his life for the first time and not being able to tell left from right or up from down because of it. Just a simple boy so completely enthralled by the emeralds shining in her eyes that he became foolish.

_He has been ever since._

Foolish and cocky and blind. Blind to all but this all consuming love for her, a girl he hardly knows. A girl who didn't want his friendship, his companionship, because of a mistake he made so long ago. Is the man to pay for the boy's mistakes?

The boy made many mistakes. Bullying people to feel superior. Showing off his flying skills to impress her. Competing ardently with her in class to show her his intellect. But the fights, the mere moments of passion that flew between them each day up until they were sixteen, in which each would spout words they never meant to say because in that moment the two enemies wanted to hurt the other as badly as possible, those were his worst mistakes.

He made her cry so many times. She deserved it. She did break his heart, after all.

He remembers that day. That day in fourth year when he was gliding by on his broomstick and shouted hellos to her and her friends. That day when she slapped the grin off his face and stole the sparkle out of his eyes and turned his love for her into an obsessive, all consuming despair.

He broke that day. Something inside of him snapped when he realized that the girl of his dreams truly does hate him. When he realized that his dreams of a future with her laugh and smile forever near him, well it was only a dream. She was his fantasy, his wish for the future that would never be transformed into reality. He would have to live his life without her and with that realization his heart snapped in two.

**She never did understand that.**

She didn't even know of his feelings until a year later when he worked up the courage to ask her out. It was the infamous fight by the lake. You know the one, no need to go into further detail.

_He broke again._ More pieces chipped away and the next time she saw him in sixth year he was merely a ghost of himself, a shadow. _She broke a little then, too._

James Potter was the embodiment of perfection, at least that's what she always secretly thought. Rich, handsome, talented, she didn't think there was a more gifted and spirited person alive. James Potter was everything she strove to be and many nights over the years she silently admitted to herself that she would never measure up. _Who could?_

Of course he was arrogant. Of course he acted as though he was on the top of the world. Who wouldn't be a bit cocky in his position?

Quidditch Captain. Head Boy. Pureblood. Three friends who would die for him. Parents who could give him every opportunity. Girls fawning over him. More acquaintances than he could count. Perfect grades and natural talent. Of course she hated him. Or was it jealousy?

James Potter was intimidation incarnate. How is it possible for someone to be so perfect and not be intimidating? He should have had a lonely existence. He should have been on a pedestal, behind a glass like those priceless pieces of art that are forever admired but never touched. He should have been treated like a delicate jewel or rare diamond, a masterpiece not fit for the harshness of reality. He should have been very lonely. He should have been that statuesque figure she always pictured depicting some tragic hero of an old Greek tragedy. And without those three amazing friends, he probably would have been.

She would have liked that. She would have liked to see the sadness in his eyes because he was unreachable behind the solid wall of glass. She would have liked to watch him slowly dying from the pain of living without companionship, without a single soul that cares. She would have liked that because at least then he would have been human, a boy that in her most weak of moments she could admit that she wouldn't terribly mind being best friends with.

But he could be so cruel. It was strange for someone who can be so noble, such an outgoing boy of the people, that he could be such a bully. A curse here, an insult there, nothing was too low for James Potter in his fifteen year old body. But even within his cruelty perfection showed through his every move. Stinging wit that never ceased. Turning of jests and deliberate taunts that forever could make an onlooker marvel at his intellect. His wit was poison veiled in brilliance. It wasn't fair. It wasn't right.

She hated him. She hated his cruelty. Hated that glint he got in his eyes after exacting some clever jest. Hated those cocky winks he would send her way after beating her on a test or winning a quidditch match. She hated that through it all, all the infuriating glances and moments when he was most heartless, that to her he still seemed to be the embodiment of what perfection should be!

Lily Evans was odd. She wore ties with her uniforms like the boys and put dark black liner thickly around her eyes. She painted her nails bright pinks and neon greens only to peel the color off the next day during classes so that she would have to paint her nails again with shocking oranges and the darkest of blues. She liked to take long walks outside when it rained and sadly she became a pathological liar when she was twelve. She enjoyed spouting strange philosophies to those who would listen knowing that they were nonsense but saying them anyway because she enjoyed the look on people's faces when they heard her. Lily Evans loved to laugh.

Lily Evans was elusive. Hard to capture, hard to understand, she came to represent perfection quicker than charming Mister Potter. She was the perfection of a Picasso or a Van Gogh. Every single one of her oddities made the perfect painting and she was sealed behind solid glass. Sealed in a way James Potter never was.

Lily Evans was so very lonely. An ethereal entity no person was truly able to catch in their grasp for five years of Hogwarts because all knew her heart still belonged in the Muggle world. For all its miracles and charms, the magical world was never able to capture Lily's heart and soul and she always longed for home. Longed for it with every breath she took and through every glow her laugh would put on her face. Longed for it until the moment she allowed him to show her that in _this_ world she had something she never had as a muggle… she had love.

When she realized she loved him she was sixteen and he hadn't spoken to her for three months. The fire had fled from his eyes and the fight had gone from his body and he surrendered. After five years of unwavering loyalty he gave up and turned away. She never wanted his attentions more badly.

Life is full of irony, of its little jokes. It was characteristic of Lily to want what she can't have. Characteristic of Lily to look at him, really look into his soul just when he put himself beyond her reach because it was so utterly human.She was left wondering where his laugh went and who he was paying attention to and feeling jealous every time she saw his golden stare directed at some ditz or slut who doesn't deserved him. It was her stare, only hers.

It was hers, he was hers, and only Lily Evans could be so possessive of a boy she hated and hardly knew for five years yet feel she was still able to claim him as her own. And that's what she did. She walked right up to him Christmas day of their sixth year, pulled his face to her own, and kissed him hard on the mouth. Neither have been the same since.

The shock, the pain, it is hard to describe the emotions to be felt in that one moment of passionate kissing. No dreams came true and no problems were solved, but in that moment the world slipped away and all Lily Evans could think was the perfection of this boy she hated too long and cherished too little. All Lily Evans could think of was the chilling perfection the moment embodied.

Sadly, life isn't the obvious fairytale everyone wishes to be. In life you have to create your own Happily Ever After and live through a slightly more angsty Once Upon A Time and many times girls have to deal with a slightly confused, too proud Prince. So of course he dreamt of this moment and wished for this moment and despised her when she gave him this momentall too late. Of course he was too eager to never be Lily Evans' Prince Charming.

He hated her in that moment, but only in the way that he so desperately and pathetically loved her.

The kiss lasted a moment, a mere moment, and the next second she slipped out of his arms and walked slowly towards the portrait hole. She looked back once. Looked back to a shell-shocked James and his overly awed friends and said, "See you around, Potter." She was still not caught and he was still unable to fight. James was broken and Lily wouldn't be the one to fix him. She couldn't even fix herself. Sixteen year olds are hopeless creatures.

James Potter wanted her heart. Lily's heart was in London with her parents and sister and cries of God Save the Queen. Lily's heart was with football games and the Beatles and her dog named Lucy. Lily's heart was far away from magic. James' heart was absorbed in it.

It was hopeless. Hopeless through the odd friendship that gave them makeshift security. Hopeless through her wild gaiety that wouldn't allow her to be serious. Hopeless through his pain, his fear of letting himself love her as deeply and as powerfully as before. Hopeless because the emotions and feelings were too much to handle, to understand and after six months of friendship, the sixteen year olds were no closer to each other than at Christmas when they made some sort of awkward bond.

Seventeen is an interesting age. At seventeen teenagers begin to believe that they're adults and wise and have the solution to all their problems. At seventeen teenagers are thrown into a fantasy world, in which they believe too deeply in their own maturity and their ownconvictions and the fact that anything, anything beyond anything, is possible. James Potter was always susceptible to fantasies. Lily Evans always floated just out of their reach.

Seventeen year old James Potter came to Hogwarts without sixteen year old James Potter's despair. Seventeen year old James Potter broke free of the glass that incased him throughout his sixteenth year and he believed in the magic of his spectacular age in teenagehood. He believed he could win over Lily Evans' heart and soul completely.

The key difference between Lily's world and James' world is that Lily grew up submerged in plain reality and James grew up submerged in glittering magic. Witches and wizards don't have to deal with the reality of muggles. James never did. Lily never learned how not to.

What was the big problem here? What was it that was keeping these two people who love each other apart for so long and why couldn't they just succumb to their love? It's rather simple in a very complex way.

Seventeen year old James came back with the fire sixteen year old James had lost. Seventeen year old James was ready to fight for the remembrance of that single Christmas kiss that sixteen year old James viewed as months too late to save him. Seventeen year old James Potter wanted odd Lily Evans with a fervor he never had before.

Perfection is intimidating and enthralling. Perfection is the reality of all your dreams coming true. Perfection is scary.

Imagine it. Imagine having the pinnacle of all your desires resting in the palm of your hand. What would you feel?

Lily felt fear. Lily felt the amazement of having him, of loving him and being loved by him. Lily felt the amazement of having her one true desire and was deathly afraid because of it. What if she lost him?

Perfection left a bittersweet taste in her mouth. She was enlivened by it, brightened by it, completely tortured every time she though about it. Wonderful, brilliant James Potter. James Potter of her dreams, her perfect, tragic hero and he washers. He wasall hers. But how long can a dream last? How long would their happily ever after survive?

Lily loved the muggle world. She loved the reality she lived in and the pain she experienced. She loved that darker side she was born into because it made the world surrounding her all that more beautiful. Lily felt the harshness of reality each day she lived in the muggle world. She felt the pain and the need to cry for so many years and loved it. Loved it because every time she smiled, every time she laughed, that happiness bubbling inside was magnified by the fact that she understood its beauty. Pain taught her that. James never felt pain until her met her. Never felt pain until she shattered him so when she finally loved him the joy he felt was indescribable. (With those minor set backs of course!) Lily was born in pain and overly cautious because of it.

Lily was a different seventeen than James. She lived with no illusions, no fantasies. She was, instead, burdened with nothing more than doubts. Lily Evans was an angsty seventeen that created drama and pain and she was so afraid of her own desires. It was a bit scary for her. Having perfection slowly forming in the palm of her hand was the scariest thing she had ever experienced. So instead, she turned away. Instead, she remained her elusive self always just out of James' grasp. Lily Evans remained behind her glass case. James Potter couldn't do anything to break through.

Lily Evans was silly, or so she seemed. When she was sixteen she decided that all she wanted out of life was James Potter. She decided that although neon nail polish and lies fill her day up nicely enough, nothing would compare to the warmth she would get inside his arms. _Please have him love me_, she would beg that stars when she saw is blank stare pass her by. _Please_, she would cry to any one that would listen. And he did. James Potter loved her. All she had to do was accept that.

But it was so hard. So hard to accept that type of happiness that comes to you and stays for life. Where was the catch, the price to pay for the answer to her prayers? What would happen once she embraced her fate? Would she be one of the tragic heroes she so wished James was? Would she have everything she ever dreamed ofonly to lose it all because of one mistake, one blind step into the unknown? Could she risk her stabilityto venture blindly into her love for James? Lily wished she were strong. Love made her weak.

Love made her find the pain hidden deep within her and realize that if she ever lost James, she would lose allreason to be alive. If she ever lost James she would lose all will, all hope to gain that Happily Ever After that could be hers. If she lost James, Lily Evans would never taste perfection again.

It is a hard decision to make. "To be or not to be", "tis better to love and to lose", and all that jazz. Let me ask you one question. One simple question to put minds at rest and aching hearts at ease. Would you risk it?

**End A/N: Don't even ask how I came up with this… no idea! I did this instead of study. AP tests suck! lol**

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	2. Chapter 2

Most Happily Ever Afters come together through years of hard work, years of pain and emotion and happiness that never lasted more than days at a time. Most Happily Ever Afters come at the peak of ambition when kids are grown and hairs are slowly turning gray. Strangely, for Lily and James their Ever After was much simpler.

Well, not exactly simpler because there was Lily's melodramatic yearning for reality and James' ecstasy for those fantasies that were so close to becoming his. They were at an awkward age back then when the only things keeping the two lovers from perfection were themselves. Don't you remember what being seventeen was like when you were either on the top of the world or the lowliest dung on the street? Poor Lily, poor James and their elaborate minds that must complicate simple matters.

Christmas was a special day for Lily and James. In their first year, Christmas Day was the first prank James ever played. Sirius Black was a horrendous influence on a boy who could have turned out to be so sweet. In their third year, Christmas was when Lily got her first kiss and that same year James won the winter quidditch match. In fifth year, Christmas Day Petunia got married and gave Lily a brilliant excuse to spend that lovely break in a world she never could stop calling home. In miraculous London, Lily's first love.

Last year at Christmas, well don't you remember what happened? James Potter sitting on the couches watching Remus and Sirius play a game of exploding snap. James Potter laughing, the most musical sound, when Sirius burned off an eyebrow. James Potter sitting exquisitely on the couch as Lily Evans contemplated the dancing of the fire's glow upon his olive colored face. Lily Evans and her spontaneous decision to kiss those lips she'sfantasized about and touch that velvety hair she felt in her dreams and then awkwardness afterwards that made her walk away. Last Christmas was their favorite Christmas of all.

This Christmas all they had was each other. The two lovers sitting by the warm fire, sweets lay out at their feet, music being hummed out of James Potter's too delicious lips.

_"When are you going to just give up and admit that your mine?"_ He had whispered ruggedly into her ear when the yearning for her had reached its pinnacle. He had touched her face and traced her lips and before he could taste the sweetness of Lily Evans, her willowy body floated just out of reach.

_"You, Mr. Potter, must know that I am nobody's."_ Always playing games even at the most intimate and sincere of moments. Always remaining elusive, even at the cost of her own heart. Out of reach, forever, knowing deep inside that the time will once again come when James stops chasing her and she'll forever have to live without her tragic hero. Seventeen year olds are senseless creatures. 

_"Stop playing with me Lily. Just stop it. Either you're in or you're out but I won't play this game with you any longer. I'm done, do you hear? I'm done!" _Fire lit up in his golden stare and she remained mesmerized at the pain etched in his face. She had closed her eyes, had prayed for strength and none came. With her last ounce of life she opened her eyes just in time to see James turn away and stalk out the portrait hole door. She turned her eyes toward the fire. The once bright flames flickered and left Lily in a lonely darkness.

She knew where he was heading. She knew the broom shed was about to be busted open and an ancient school shooting star about to be taken out of its resting place. She knew that if she looked out the window at that exact moment she would see a beautiful silhouette flying against the moon. If only she had the strength.

Once when she was five she asked her mother what love was. Her mother's eyes had lit up and she told Lily, _"Love is perfection, Lily. Love is the beauty of life knowing that forever you willhave true happiness. Perfection, my darling, absolute perfection."_

Lily had believed her. Lily had taken to heart the words of perfection and happiness and the glittering smile on her mother's face when her father was near. Lily had taken to heart the look in her mother's eyes, the glow and the optimism, and she knew that it was love. She knew then and there as a five year old girl that perfection was her destiny.

When Lily was seven her parents divorced. It was clean. No blood thirsty fights that would have left Lily scared in her room. No dirty play by either parent. It was simple. Joint custody that ended up being weekend visits to the outskirts of London to see her mother. She had the choice to choose which parent she wanted to live with. It was an easy choice. All who knew Lily could tell you one thing. Lily's heart never left London. With her dad. With her past.

Lily's mother didn't smile after that. There was the occasional sad smile reminiscent of past glows that once lit up her face. But she lost the life she once had inside of her when she spoke of love and knew from the moment she met her ex-husband her life would be made of perfection. She lost it, why wouldn't the same thing happen to Lily?

Oh God, she couldn't imagine losing James like that. Lily Evans could never imagine a single moment of her life without James. It would be impossible. She wouldn't survive. Her mother was strong. She could look the devil in the eye and stand untouched by his torture. Lily would bend her knee and fearfully obey him.

When Lily was nine, she asked her mother if it hurts when your heart breaks. Innocence shined in those usually cynical eyes and her mother couldn't stop her eyes from welling up with tears. _"Darling, let's hope you never have to find out."_ Lily asked again, but her mother was gone lost inside memories of their London apartment when she and Lily's father were still able to understand each other. It was the first time Lily realized that forever is not as long as it seems to be.

That Christmas night, Lily sat in the stadium bleachers for three hours waiting for James to come down. She stared at him hovering above and felt butterflies fluttering in her stomach as sickening bile rose into her throat. James was right when he said she was playing a game.

She wondered sometimes why he put up with her. She was a muggleborn witch pining for years long gone and a world she hardly fits in anymore. She was a simple girl unreachable behind a wall of glass. A girl afraid that he was everything she ever wished for and what that could mean.

But when had it become fun? When had her defenses become a game of keep away, a way to make her laugh and smile when she thought up different ways of refusing James? When had it become painful? When had she started tearing away at James' heart?

Most teenage girls are foolish. They forget to look at long term consequences and the feelings surrounding them and in Lily's outbursts of wild gaiety she was as foolish as any. As foolish as any teenage girl staring into the endless golden stare of James Potter knowing herself to be completely enslaved. Actual, it makes Lily and James just that much more perfect for each other.

_"James!"_ She had called when the waiting became too agonizing. _"James, please come down!"_ She screamed into the eerie night sky that seemed brighter, more beautiful for the mere hours James flew amongst its' stars.

He landed on the other side of the bleachers and the only thing about her not completely cast into shadows was her eyes, glowing and bright. Always glowing, always bright. James asked her once how she could make her eyes glitter at any time. Lily smiled. _"It's easy; all I have to think of is London."_ Only that night she was thinking of James.

_"I'm sorry James."_ She admitted into the shadows where only part of his face could be seen. _"I was so foolish."_

_"I just need to know, Lily. I need to know if we're ever going to happen. I can't spend my life waiting for you to want me."_

Insecurities plague even the most intimidating of people. From the moment James Potter met Lily Evans he assumed his insecurity, his tragic flaw forever keeping him from that pinnacle of perfection Lily always believed him to be. She kept him from beauty, from the glitter he grew up with, because he never knew if Lily Evans ever loved him. She never said it and he never asked.

Childish romance isn't supposed to be painful. It's supposed to be easy when you're young and willing to throw your heart out there for that very first time. In first loves you give all you can, throw yourself completely into the relationship believing that it will never end. Lily was James' first love. London was Lily's.

There are so many reasons for her love of London. The only reason truly important is that Lily Evans was never able to let go of her past. Living with her father, Lily was surrounded by echoes of her mother's laugh and her sister's stories and it was home. It was safety and it was comfortable and it was love, pure and simple.

She tried to love Hogwarts. She tried to love the walls that talked and the ceiling that resembled the morning sky. She tried to love that feeling deep inside, the one where she knew, could feel, that anything was possible. She just never could.

James did though. He loved that feel of magic, that innate pleasure it gives all witches and wizards. There's a pull of magic, a feeling of endless possibilities and glittering laughter, that thrives inside all magical creatures. It's a trust, a need that can't be taught and can't be assumed. It's a faith Lily never learned inside the castle walls.

_"I'm scared James. I'm so afraid."_ Her honest words filtered into his surprised ears. James Potter could never be intimidated by perfection. He was intimidation.

_"Of me?"_ He asked misunderstanding her meaning. Misunderstanding the pain he saw forming in her eyes. Still glowing, still glittering no matter how hurt she seemed to be.

_"Of us."_ Silence. Screaming silence that said everything in their hearts, their minds. Screaming silence that answered questions neither asked and gave solutions that neither could hear.

He looked at her. Crystalline tears forming in her eyes. Her every feature begging him, but for what? What was it that she wanted him to do that he hadn't already done? What else was she asking of him?

_"I don't know what you want, Lily. But if it's not me I would like to know."_ He had said ending the silence that was strangling her. He spoke and then flew away to the broom shed leaving Lily alone in the bleachers. This past Christmas was not one they would cherish forever.

Five days. Five days she lived without him. Five days she didn't see him, didn't speak with him, and spent hours in the astronomy tower just thinking about him. Five days was all it took and James Potter became an all-consuming obsession.

His friends came back to Hogwarts the day before New Years. All Gryffindor seventh years did because they got special permission to throw a party. A last hurrah for the graduating class, if you will. Lily spent that day hiding away in the library still wondering what it was she was supposed to do. Still wondering if she would be able to do anything at all.

Fear is an amazing emotion. It could invigorate you, enliven you, or completely paralyze you. Lily wasn't her mother. Lily wouldn't survive the loss of her paradise, she couldn't.

She watched him at the party. She sat in a corner by the fire and just stared at him goofing off with his friends. Their relationship always amazed her. The complete trust and reliance of those four boys would amaze any person who ever saw them.

He seemed so… perfect that night. Disheveled hair. Eyes glowing with undaunted laughter. It was in those moments, moments when she could look at him and feel he was so imperfectly human, that she knew she loved him. Loved him despite her fear, despite his glittering perfection when he wasn't being a teenage boy.

She listened carefully as they counted down at the end of the night. She watched James look suddenly tragic as he realized she wasn't in his arms. Watched James looking for her in the crowd painfully knowing that she wasn't near him. Slowly she walked to him, slyly as not to give herself away and as the crowd shouted one she pulled his face to her own and passionately kissed him in the first moment of the New Year. And in that moment, that moment of love and trust and need, nothing else mattered to her but him. Nothing else would matter ever again.

She suddenly realized that night. It was suddenly clear. No matter what happens, perfection, _their love_, is a taste that would stay in her mouth forever. And for that, that eternity she would never assume with anything else, **for that** anything is worth the risk.

END

I hopeits a good ending... Did this instead of study for AP Government. Can't take it anymore lol!

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